Posted
by
samzenpuson Thursday May 28, 2009 @12:21AM
from the too-much-TV dept.

dacut writes "After successfully repairing the Hubble Space Telescope, astronauts aboard the shuttle Atlantis found themselves with a free day due to thunderstorms which delayed their return. They attempted to pass the time by watching movies, only to find that their laptops did not have the proper software, and Houston was unable to help. No word, alas, on what software was involved, though we can assume that software/codec updates are a tad difficult when you're orbiting the planet at 17,200MPH."

Isn't there a small issue with this being a government-funded space mission, and VLC being somewhat in breach of the DMCA or software patents or something due to its inclusion of a not-paid-up DVD decoder? I may be out of date on this issue, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have VLC for the same reason they wouldn't encode mp3s with LAME.

And that's why Russian spacecraft will always outlast US spacecraft. They may be prone to a wee bit more error, but in general you get the feeling the underlying idea is "screw protocol, what matters is it works!"

But then again... After all, the Soviet Union also failed because sticking to doctrine and doing it "the marxist way" was more important than logic, reason and real life requirements (amongst other shortcomings). It could now be the downfall of "our western" system as well. It doesn't matter anymore what is logic, reasonable or actually required. It seems more and more "looking good" and "doing the 'right' thing" is more important than accomplishing anything.

Plus the Russians will always be more relaxed because, you know, they've got cool tunes to listen to.

Actually, I think lack of respect for patents and copyright laws is probably one of the big drivers in the Chinese economic boom. Because there's no artificial limitations on what you can build and sell, all manner of artefacts are effectively 'open source'.

Actually, I think lack of respect for patents and copyright laws is probably one of the big drivers in the Chinese economic boom. Because there's no artificial limitations on what you can build and sell, all manner of artefacts are effectively 'open source'.

It's a sensible way to develop an economy. Which is why the US didn't recognise foreign copyrights or patents until 1891.

That's a good point. Most developed countries didn't get seriously concerned with IP law until they started exporting IP themselves. Japanese companies made a lot of knock-offs in the 1950s and 60s; Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan followed in the 70s and 80s. Is it surprising then that China, India, Vietnam etc. do the same? The difference is perhaps that it is easier to spot in todays better informed market.

Plus the Russians will always be more relaxed because, you know, they've got cool tunes to listen to.
Actually, I think lack of respect for patents and copyright laws is probably one of the big drivers in the Chinese economic boom. Because there's no artificial limitations on what you can build and sell, all manner of artefacts are effectively 'open source'.

Yes, and no. An awful lot of what's made in China in this "open source" manner is made by people who barely grasp what they are doing - a businessman hires a tech away from a rival company to set up some widget machine, so the other company limps along until their machine breaks and then they get someone to patch it together with chewing gum, and even the guy that hired the "expert" only pays him as little as possible to keep him around, so the "expert" likely learned about the machine in an apprentice sor

Harbor Freight vs Snap-On tools is a good case study. At Harbor Freight, you can equip a mechanic's toolbox for about 5 to 10% of the price of the same tools from Snap-On. Sure, the tools are crap, but almost all of them will work at least the first time you use them, and usually they'll last about 5 to 10% as long as the Snap-On tools.

For the shade tree mechanic, lasting 10% as long as the quality tool, is still far longer than necessary. In other words I'm only using that drill for a couple hours a year i

Somewhat off-topic, but this is probably the single biggest argument for and against laissez-faire. On one hand, the guy selling cheapest is the guy selling most. On the other hand, well the people who say they are tired of regulation and taxation, never say they are sick and tired of patent protection.

It's also cheaper to manufacture something if you don't have to pay your own design, research, development and marketing costs, and just clone someone else's work and sell into the market that they created.

It's also cheaper to manufacture something if you don't have to pay your own design, research, development and marketing costs, and just clone someone else's work and sell into the market that they created.

That's an interesting point. Manufacturing your widget in North America might cost X per widget. Having it mass-produced in a Chinese fab might cost X/2. But if the Chinese factory leaks your specs and a knock-off is released into your market, reducing your profits, that impacts your savings. Might the reduced profit justify paying the full X per widget and having it made somewhere with stricter rules?

Example: there are already some knock-off reproductions of the toys for the upcoming Transformers 2 movie. The original toys haven't even been released yet. (Tomorrow.)

But if the Chinese factory leaks your specs and a knock-off is released into your market, reducing your profits, that impacts your savings.

Leaks your specs? Nah, they just do another complete production run using the same factory line that they used to build your order.

When it becomes interesting is when they actually tweak your design a little, add a few more features that you missed. It seems to me that a totally free market like this actually drives innovation far harder than a traditional, copyright-and-patent-protected market because if the only market exclusivity your product has is the three months it takes your competitors to clone it, you'd damn well better come up with something new and _good_ in those three months to stay ahead of the curve. I would say that in 10 to 20 years' time, Chinese products will be more advanced than 'western' ones, purely due to this incredible market force.

I totally agree with the parent. Just because Marketing said it had to be in there, and Engineering figgered out how to wedge in, doesn't mean that it amounts to an enhancement.

And I'm no great fan of "Designers" or Programmers/UI Experts, but when they get it right, it SINGS. And--call it a variation on "Creepy Valley"--a near miss is almost worse than not having the feature at all.

Personally, Samsung does this to me all the time: something about their UI-philosophy I don't get. Oppositely, Motorola mus

In economic terms, its called a substitute good [wikipedia.org]. Any product, even nonexistent, exists in a market to which it is/will be a substitute good for some other product. I have a difficult time believing that any unrealized or otherwise imagined product could NOT be a substitute for a current good/service.

Yes and no. The DMCA applies to WIPO countries which have signed onto the WCT and the WPPT. the penalties might not be the same but the countries are obligated to the effects of the DMCA because it was pulled almost directly from those two treaties less the punishments.

This is how the US was able to extradite an Australian citizen to America for a violation of it. This is also why you see a lot of countries attempting to implement DMCA style laws.

EU countries for example, have the reverse engineering exemption. If we have te right to use data, we can use whatever technical means to get at that data including reverse engineering for interoperability. The US doesn't like this and has been trying to force a change but it seems that it isn't going to happen.

Aircraft and ships come under rules similar to embassies of their country of registration and so that country's laws apply inside. I presume the same is true of spacecraft. They could use VLC if they took their laptop on a spacewalk though...

> Borders extend vertically only in US law, not in the rest of the world...

They extend diagonally in the rest of the world? Your nation claims no airspace?

>...another law that does not apply outside the USA

What law might that be?

While Congress has never enacted legislation formally defining the upper limit of US air space the most common administrative limit is 50 miles (80km). The USA certainly does not claim that its borders extend vertically to infinity. Space is clearly recognized by the US government as international territory.

VLC isn't supported very well and should be your last-resort if all else fails.

Media Player Classic Home Cinema is a much superior player that also has built-in playback codecs.

What does "isn't supported very well" mean? VLC's got a lot more active a community behind it - just compare the size of the forums for each.The big thing that VLC has over MPC and most other DVD players on windows is that it is completely independent of Microsoft's DirectShow filter system which is pretty much the equivalent of DLL hell, but for codecs.

VLC may not have the slickest user interface and it may not be the most efficient media player since it has virtually no support for hardware acceleration, but it in its current form it is pretty much bullet proof - no matter what kind of system configuration problems you've got, it usually "just works." It isn't my player of choice, but it is my last ditch player because it pretty much plays anything.

Yes, I agree with most of your points. VLC is very well supported, on a lot of operating systems - but certain parts of it just aren't good.

For example, the lack of acceleration makes compatibility great across the board, but it makes it dog slow on every OS. Until recently it was also single threaded - actually, it might still be. 1080p isn't even possible on most CPUs, while with MPC-HC, DirectShow + GPU acceleration, you'd be looking at 15-20% CPU usage max. (and you get to enable quality enhancing shaders)

I'm not saying it's bad; it just has a different featureset, with compatibility prioritized over...

Unfortunately for me, compatibility hasn't been so great on my computers. I've always had less trouble with MPC-HC. VLC doesn't play audio on one of my computers, and it gets aspect ratios screwed up on another. (How? No clue. It doesn't have any acceleration, so I'm totally baffled.)

I've also repeatedly come across videos that it has no support for. In the end, if MPC-HC + KliteMega can't open it, I just go for MPlayer. (which almost never fails, but has an even worse UI. Or rather, it has no UI; it's just a box with the video playing in it.:x

To each his own. My Uncle has a Mac, and he says VLC beats the pants off Quicktime. Heh - I agree with him!:P

I just wouldn't take VLC if I had the chance to get a nice DirectShow media player(like MPC-HC) and ffdshow.

Google -> search 'media player classic home cinema' -> click top result -> click 'download' on the left -> choose the version you want (win32/x86_64) and click the 'download' link on the right -> gives you list of versions (somewhat redundant here), click the full filename (eg, mplayerc_homecinema_x86_v1.2.908.0.zip), save it to disk. How can you go wrong?

Brian [on phone with Jillian]: Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh, you gotta hit, uh, "DVD" and then "menu" and then "select." Yeah... Yeah, the DVD needs to be face-up when you put it in. Uh huh. You should be able to see the words "Mr. 3000" Yeah... Still nothing? Is it plugged in? Okay, so, plug it in...

Because DVD Playback requires a basic $5~ codec (for all the patent holders etc) some versions of Windows do not ship with it and thus without third party applications like PowerDVD or WinDVD that supply a codec, DVD Playback is "impossible."

I'm not sure I know a workaround without sending data to the station, either a codec or third party software that has a built-in decoder.

Given that NASA's competence extends to wacky stunts like patching mars rover code by radio, and further given that DeCSS is pretty damn short, when you come right down to it [cmu.edu] they could probably have just gotten somebody on the ground to read it to them.

The bigger, more serious, question remains: "You are in space! Why are you watching DVDs?"

Hubble is not in the normal space shuttle/ISS orbit, which made getting an Internet connection more difficult than usual. In their normal orbit, they just time their Internet downloads for when they are passing over Cringely's Pringles can WiFi antenna...

Because DVD Playback requires a basic $5~ codec (for all the patent holders etc) some versions of Windows do not ship with it and thus without third party applications like PowerDVD or WinDVD that supply a codec, DVD Playback is "impossible."

Pirates! Theives! No one sold them a license to play the DVD in space! Unless it's region 0 it must be illegal. Either that or your software would have to play one DVD per region in the Shuttle's orbit (and of synchronise switching between players while switching other players off to avoid licensing violations). No the lag they'd experience with playback is not an excuse!

If you proceed from the mistaken assumption that these are cheap ass vanilla laptops from a dodgy computer store... then, yeah. This is a 'victory' for DRM.

But that's not the situation here - these are configuration controlled laptops specifically prepared for use on the Shuttle. Odds are the prelaunch checklist didn't include 'test entertainment capabilities' and thus the lack of a codec or driver went unnoticed.

This is yet another case of "it's not OSS's fault but it is OSS's problem".

OSS adoption is effectively suppressed in any territory where a person or corporation even believes that they can get in trouble with the law for using it.

If Linux doesn't sort it out, then Linux will most likely never be adopted in those countries, and certainly it prevents yet another large barrier to adoption. That's a far likelier scenario than legislatures spontaneously coming to their senses. In thousands of years of civiliza

Given the average content industry logic, it's probably "None. The market is too small so we can't find a local distributor, but no other distributor has the right to sell it there and you can't import it yourself due to restrictions. Sorry that you can't have that certain content in your outer space region."

does drm cover space shuttles? i'd think they'd need some kinda special license for that. there's probably a nominal fee - maybe proportional to the velocity at time of viewing. or maybe someone had already watched the copy before launch so it had expired. there must be a patent on watching movies in 0g so someone needs to be paid.

Someone like "Amazon" or "Apple" should provide Movies for the space missions. It is great PR. Each astronaut picks 5 movies or so, which get loaded onto the laptop. It saves NASA and the taxpayers money, because you don't have to pay for the fuel to lift the DVDs. Someone has made sure the software to view the movies is on the Laptop in whatever OS they are using. And who ever pulls off this PR stunt pays 1 or 2 bucks in royalties to the studios.

It is not at all clear that they "repaired the Hubble successfully". They performed their jobs well, but we won't know whether the Hubble has been successfully repaired until it is calibrated and producing images.

I'll likely remain Earthbound for my entire life yet I usually find plenty to do before I'm tempted by mass media. Spare time or not, I can't imagine being so bored during a relatively short Shuttle mission that I'd want to fire up a movie. Instead, why not grab a camera and inspire other people who won't ever get the chance to orbit our planet.

Perhaps *you* might not be bored in space, but these are astronauts whose *job* it is to be in space. One can only be awed by the beauty of the sight of earth from space for so long, then it becomes old news. Ditto for the space shuttle itself - it might be awesome, interesting, and new to someone who *isn't* already an astronaut and had the inner workings of every piece of tech on it drilled into their head so many times they could do it all in their sleep, but I'm sure its all terribly 'the same old stuff' to those who are.

Also, there is an awful lot more room on the earth, things you haven't already seen, than there is on the shuttle for the astronauts. They are certainly intimately familiar with every square inch of space that they might go to 'find plenty to do' - pretty much all the gear and equipment they have is all there with the purpose of their mission - there isn't much in terms of 'things to do'. (Well, I heard somewhere they did bring some movies on DVD, presumably ones they haven't already seen)

And "grab a camera" ? - I'm sure so many pictures have been taken from orbit, and of the inside of the shuttle, that any more would just be a waste of storage/film. I'm sure that there were even cameras rolling (and/or snapping) for their entire set of spacewalks working on Hubble, as well. What on earth could now they take pictures of that would be new?

There are already people posting "well, they should have checked to make sure their computer could play DVDs." Why? This is a reasonable expectation of what a computer should be able to do out of the box! My Mac certainly came with the ability to play DVDs, and nowadays most Linux installs do too - so we're almost certainly talking about a Windows box. Sure, you can download and install VLC - as a matter of fact, that's what I had to resort to with my wife's old Windows laptop before she (thankfully) switched to a Mac. But why the heck are all you Windows users so tolerant of the stupidity that leaves a stock operating system unable to do exactly the sort of thing the average user will expect to be able to do?

I was a DOS user and then a Windows user from way back. But silly little things like this always bugged me, and eventually I wised up.

Can't speak for other distribs since it's been too long since I've used them, but last I checked ubuntu throws up a message on the first attempt at playing a DVD using totem telling you that if you want to play the dvd you have to click ok and allow it to download codecs, which may or may not be legal depending on the laws of your country.

And yes, ubuntu is my main OS (although I haven't done a fresh install in a pretty long time).

Same reason that linux doesn't playback MP3, DVDs and h.264 by default. US-only software patents covering the codecs. Without paying the fee, and getting the licences to use the patents, it's illegal to ship it in your US product.

XP added limited MP3 playback, Windows Vista added built in MPEG2 playback, and 7 adds h.264 playback. Yes, XP should have had MPEG2 playback built in, it came out three years after DVD became widely available.

Linux at least has the excuse that free distros can't pay the patent fees and thus can't ship them in the default package to US users (so usually have a 'download it now' option when you first need it, where you promise you don't live in the US, and download from a mirror elsewhere in the world). This is annoying when you do live outside the US, and have to put up with software patent bullshit in everything, even non-US software projects, because they don't want to get sued.

The laptops must have been there for a reason. Perhaps someone in configuration management said, "Gee, it's going into space, it might be mission-critical at some point, so let's not load it up with entertainment stuff and bloatware."

Um, am I the only one who read that and thought, "They're aboard the shuttle...in space...and they're going to watch a movie? Really? That's the first choice for how to spend a day in a circumstance that basically nobody else on the goddamn planet is going to have a shot at for a really, really long time?

Watching planet earth from outer space will be fascinating for an hour and the fascination will be renewed whenever lighting chances or any other circumstances lead to a new view. However, staring 8 hours at a blue ball will not be fascinating enough.Maybe for a Zen buddhist, yes, but not for scientists/astronaut hybrids.

If NASA can get internet, and NASA communicates with the space station... What era is NASA living in, if the space station can't get an internet connection. The internet solves all problems, especially missing codec problems.

I'm scratching "Be an Astronaut" off my life goals list. Seriously, stuck in a room for months and months on end with OUT an internet connection?!

It's not a question of managing priorities. It's a question of style and correctness. Nothing should go up that doesn't work. And that should include things that might seem to not matter so much at the time.

If even the small, seemingly insignificant things don't escape notice and inspection, then surely the big things, the things that cause shuttles to blow up or fall apart on reentry, would also not go unnoticed or underestimated.

I don't need schooling on the history of NASA. I was born in 1968. It wa

Oh, please. You're as bad as the people who go on endlessly about "technically, a Mac is a PC". Drop the etymological reductionism and acknowledge that the meaning of a phrase is defined by its usage, not by the sum of the meanings of its components.

In the real world so unfamiliar to the endless horde of quibblers and nitpickers, there is no distinction between "laser disc" and "LaserDisc". The generic term used for media such as LDs and DVDs is "optical disc", not "laser disc".

Right, because NOBODY has ever had any problems watching videos on Linux. Just the other day I was trying to watch some avis off a digital camera in Ubuntu, and VLC crapped out in a big way, complaining first that they were malformed and then playing a few stuttery frames and stopping. Wonderful. Sure, maybe there was something wrong with the AVIs, but I know they work on Windows.

(Excuse my profanity)You're in Fucking Space! SPACE! At best this is going to happen only a handful of times in the average astronauts lifetime, more likely only once, what the hell are they doing with a DVD player!?!

Yes, going into space would be cool, a once in a lifetime event and almost every breathing human being would be utterly flabbergasted by the view and the opportunity. I think that there is an aspect that you are overlooking;

The activities that NASA assigns the shuttle crew, mission specialists and spacewalkers is very intensive and intellectually exhausting. Being in space for a week to two weeks and having nearly every minute of your time mapped out and assigned creates an incredible amount of stress.

Working on earth, in a conventional job. Let's say as a programmer, working 16 hour days with a team of bosses standing right behind you and monitoring your every keystroke, you would find yourself exhausted and looking for a mental margarita after a very short time.

NASA cannot make it to the Mos Eisley Cantina on the planet Tatooine where the crew can have a few beers and tease the imperial storm troopers (Star Wars reference). Being able to take 2-3 hours out of a mission to watch a movie is most certainly a welcome diversion.

For a historical reference look up what happened on Skylab 3 when NASA ground controllers assigned too many tasks to the station crew. After a few days the Skylab 3 crew "went out on strike" for a day and refused to answer any ground communications unless it was an emergency. They needed the downtime to rest and relax. After that incident NASA became a bit more relaxed in how many micromanaged tasks they would burden astronauts with and began to put relaxation time into their mission planning.

There are people in the world who are just boring and unimaginitive. People who aren't stupid, but just don't think of interesting things to do, and aren't interested in doing them anyway, even if someone else thinks of them and invites them along.

Apparently, the space program has become so routine that such people have found their way there. I've no idea how that's even possible (if you're that dull, what would possess you to apply for astronaut training?)

Uh-huh. Yeah, it's that these astronauts are just boring, mundane, unimaginative people.

Either that, or it's that these astronauts have spent weeks up to their necks in a combination of Awesome, Challenge, and Danger as they float around in fucking OUTER SPACE, fixing an incredible yet delicate scientific instrument that both expands our scientific horizons and blows our minds with crazy images, with their clunky suits and a tether to their space ship being the only thing keeping them alive as they work, and their office view consisting of the little blue globe they call home and the vastness of space.

These peoples' bowel movements are more amazing than anything you do here on earth, and your example of something "interesting" is an attraction at Chuck-E-Cheese?

I mean would you seriously tell an experimental jet test pilot (which many astronauts were before they decided to do something even cooler) who after flying around at supersonic speeds all day pushing both their body and mind to the limit constantly decides that when they land back at base to spend the rest of the day chilling in the rec room watching American Idol, that they're dull?

Maybe, just maybe, after two weeks of being responsible for one of the most complicated machines ever made (which in case I haven't mentioned is a fucking space ship) where every action has the potential to be a matter of life and death on the boundaries of human adaptability, "dull" has a certain appeal, you know, as a change of pace.

Here's my example of unimaginative: Someone who thinks an astronaut has to play "space-tag" to make their life exciting and interesting.

Holy fuck, man, if you're going to force an acronym that hard at least make it one that's good and/or makes sense. That looks like you just took one word that sounded bad and started with a D, one word that sounded bad and had an R near the front, and one word that just happened to be a noun starting with M.